STATEN ISLAND: Federal authorities sentenced a 43-year-old Staten Island sex offender from New Springville to 10 years in federal prisonafter he pleaded guilty to sending sexually-explicit materials to a 12-year-old girl through Instagram.
Behar’s plea enabled him to avoid the top federal charge initially filed against him — attempted sexual exploitation of a child — and three other separate charges of transferring obscene material to minors. His full sentence, which adds on an extra 45 days of imprisonment, also includes three years of supervised release.
Behar was arrested in January 2021 after allegedly misrepresenting himself as a teenage boy on social media and was accused of attempting to lure a 12-year-old girl to the Staten Island Mall.
When alerted of the contact, the victim’s aunt created a separate Instagram account, stating she was a 17-year-old girl named “Lola.” Behar, posing as a teenager and using another name, told “Lola” his older brother was “looking for a girlfriend,” according to court documents.
The victim’s aunt asked for a picture of the supposed brother, and Behar showed a picture of himself before repeatedly asking “Lola” to meet him at the mall, said authorities.
Behar arrived to the mall on Jan. 24, 2021, and messaged “Lola” his description and provided photos of himself wearing the outfit he described. The 12-year-old girl’s mother notified the police and Behar was arrested around one block away from the mall, read court documents.
As he was being apprehended, police saw Behar deleting items from his iPhone, which were later discovered to be social media apps.
Authorities alleged Behar used the Instagram account @slimvectra2025 to pose as a teenage boy and communicate to minors on numerous occasions. A federal sentencing memo listed 10 different instances between September 2020 and January 2021 in which he sent an image of male genitals to children between the ages of 11 and 15.
He frequently asked the children in those cases to send pictures of their bodies, prosecutors said, and sometimes requested they complete explicit acts on camera.
Behar was previously required to register as a level-one sex offender for using social media in an attempt to lure a teen girl for sex in 2018.
However, Behar’s previous standing as a level-one sex offender did not list him on the state’s registry (which only lists offenders of a level two or higher).
There are three levels of sex offenders. Level one is reserved for those with “low risk of repeat offense.” Level-two offenders have a “moderate risk of repeat offense,” and those who fall under level three have “high risk of repeat offense” and are a “threat to public safety,” according to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS).
United States District Judge Rachel Kovner ordered Behar to comply with any registration requirements following his sentence, his lawyer, Kannan Sundaram, told the Advance/SILive.com. New York State law indicates Behar will have his offender risk level determined when he is released from custody.
His most recent case carried a statutory minimum prison sentence of 10 years, but prosecutors were seeking a sentence between 11.5 and 12 years imprisonment.
“The judge rightly recognized that there were mitigating circumstances at play here that called for a sentence below the advisory guidelines range,” said Sundaram in a written statement. “And in doing so she paid attention to something that is too often overlooked or outright ignored in the relentless focus on punishment: the need for a sentence to advance the goal of rehabilitation and positioning the defendant to successfully reintegrate into the community.”
Behar previously requested a departure to a lighter sentence after complaining about harsh conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), where he was held. Sundaram told the court Behar was in “grave danger” last year due to the nature of the charges he faced.
In a sentencing memo issued late last month, federal prosecutors firmly pushed back on that request, writing, “the defendant’s crimes have caused far greater harm to others than he has himself experienced at the MDC.”
Behar separately plead guilty to a misdemeanor case in Criminal Court in St. George which included an order of protection.
By Joseph Ostapiuk [SILIVE]
